Staff Picks

Review by Julia Buckwalter

Imagine trading in your front window, your windshield, your phone for the slow and steady passage of continents? In the 2024 Booker Prize Winning Fiction book Orbital by Samantha Harvey, join six men and women from Russia, Italy, America, Britain, and Japan during 24 hours of their lives as they orbit the earth, 16 rotations from first to final page. If this sounds disorienting, and magical, it is this and so much more… A love letter to Earth, you might call it. Harvey enters the minds of each astronaut and cosmonaut as they process moments in their day, floating, eating, dreaming, remembering, running tests, and reading the surface of our planet for the benefit and understanding of mankind. This is a book to disappear into, to lose yourself in until pausing your reading while getting up to refill your cup of coffee, suddenly conscious of your steps, of gravity, of the minutiae in your own immediate surroundings. What would it mean to watch a typhoon growing over the ocean from outer space? To consider the life of the fisherman you met snorkeling once, waiting for the storm to break his shore? To share your rations with your crew, and linger on the memory of your garden back home? To crave the sensation of running in the rain, consider the faces of your loved ones left behind. Imagine the Earth spinning, no visible political boundaries, cities at night and the luscious, sprawling wilderness of daylight. The recurring golden break of dawn and the dark purple arrival of night, the consciousness of useless emotions, the limitless space beyond… If this sounds like your type of daydream, dig in!

Review by Collee

Review by Ash

I don’t even know where to start with this book, this is the kind of book you pick up and can’t put down once you get into it. The story is gripping, the dynamics are interesting, and the prose is poetic and gripping. I loved almost every aspect of this book and have reread it within a month of my first read-through. In my opinion, this book is short enough to read quickly and enjoy it once, or delve into multiple times and find new aspects to enjoy, new things that connect. 

Following two characters kept apart by a never-ending time war, this story follows a perspective-switching back and forth, in a classic Romeo and Juliet-style story. There are both letters and chapters written by and from the perspectives of the characters, giving you insight into how they wish to be perceived versus how they truly are. The world in this book is very much the backdrop of the story, it doesn’t have much direct explanation. It leaves a lot of the inner workings of the universe and societies up to interpretation and intuition from the way the characters are moving through said world. The relationship between our two main characters shifts and grows even in the short 224 pages, and the tumultuous back and forth feels very realistic to the painful give and take of a complicated sapphic relationship. This book was a great read, with emotional beats, beautiful prose, and what I thought was the perfect ending, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a short, emotional, queer, sci-fi love story. 

Review by Julia Buckwalter

Most Wonderful (Clark) is on the other hand a goofy, cute, steamy, maximalist, completely queer romance delivered with plenty of emotional intelligence, pop culture quips and lots of sex! This book is for the open-minded love-to-laugh readers out there… A tale of three siblings gathered together in upstate New York over the holidays, navigating emotional and work-life upheavals in their show business mother’s upstate NY mansion. You’ll root for Birdie, the lazy stand-up comic, Liz, her show-runner type-A sister, and Rafi, their adopted and hopelessly romantic humanitarian brother. A splashy, fun, new favorite and not-so-guilty pleasure to keep you warm and smiling on these cold Winter nights!

Review by Julia Buckwalter

Brightly Shining (Rishoi) is a dark tale; if this had a Christmas genre, it would be modern Dickens with a splash of Fredrik Backman. In Norway, sisters Ronja and Melissa live in a cramped apartment, facing eviction along with their loving but chronically drunk father. The youngest, Ronja, feels her misfit nature most among spoiled classmates, sitting outside in the bitter cold and feeding her lunch to her squirrel friend. Life seems hopeless until a job opportunity for the family arrives – selling Christmas trees. The writing is very sparse and very effective! This book was a much unexpected read, and may leave you with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat. 

Review by Sophie

If you have read Kimmerer’s other works, Gathering Moss and Braiding Sweetgrass, you will know the gorgeous, flowing style in which she writes. This slim volume uses the serviceberry as a conduit for understanding reciprocal gift economy. Kimmerer tells us that the delicious serviceberry and all the other sustenance that the earth provides whether it be flowers for your table, firewood to keep you warm or the pages of a book, should not just be seen as natural resources or commodities but as gifts. And “if our first response to the receipt of gifts is gratitude, then our second is reciprocity: to give a gift in return.” The gift could be a direct response like weeding or bringing water to the field that gifted you flowers, planting a habitat for the bees that fertilized the fruit you just picked, or an indirect one, like donating to a land trust, reducing your carbon footprint or speaking up at a public hearing.  This book is a sweet and timely reminder of our connection to all living things and that every choice matters.

Review by Nat

“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.” So begins The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam War novel from 2015. Starting with the fall of Saigon in 1975, the story follows an undercover communist agent as he reluctantly flees his country on the eve of revolution. He is tasked with embedding himself in a South Vietnamese community exiled in California and reporting on any counterrevolutionary activities. The unnamed narrator must constantly decide between his political ideals and his personal loyalties while negotiating the precarious position of a person split between two worlds. 

“The Sympathizer” is a thrilling espionage novel in its own right, but is also far more than that. It satirizes the American-centric perspective on the war that we typically see in this country, offers an insightful look into an immigrant’s experience, and provides a thoughtful examination of the inner turmoil and loneliness caused by constantly hiding one’s true identity. I would place Nguyen’s book right alongside two other classic Vietnam War novels I have thoroughly enjoyed, namely The Quiet American by Graham Greene and The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Both darkly comic and heart-wrenching, this astonishing novel will stick with me for a long time.

Review by Amber

These cards embody the vibrant essence of life, inviting you into dreamy desert landscapes that mirror the wisdom of your inner self. This deck serves as a navigational tool, guiding you to connect with your authentic voice and open your awareness, bringing you closer to your true, Divine Self. Radiant Wilds Tarot by Nat Girsberger is an optimistic start to my day. This deck sits upon my altar offering a welcoming and nurturing space for self-exploration whenever I feel the desire. Each card I draw is a personal journey, allowing me to interpret its imagery and meaning through my own lens. While it may seem mystical, the process is straightforward; it simply requires you to listen to your own voice. By illuminating both your strengths and vulnerabilities, this deck acts as a mirror, reflecting your deepest truths and revealing the vast reservoir of answers that already resides within you.

Review by Collee

As the month of thanks opens, we can be grateful for the release of a new Sally Rooney novel. Truly. She has been hailed as the voice of the millennial generation, but as a reader who is decidedly not millennial, I can assure you that her voice is her own and is generally exquisite. Her previous books (Normal People, Conversations With Friends are a few- you may have heard of them) have portrayed, in excruciating detail, an inability to communicate that can be the result of young people trying to negotiate new relationships. Intermezzo ages the players a bit and shifts the focus from trying to understand love to grieving the loss of it. The novel focuses on two brothers, a decade apart in age, who must grapple with the death of their father from cancer. Refreshingly, there is no dearth of communication here. It may be misguided at times, but there’s no lack of trying. The romantic relationships the brothers are enmeshed in are open to self-scrutiny, if only because the stakes can be feigned to be low. Both men are involved with unlikely people, whether due to age difference or unavailability. The brothers’ fraught relationship with each other is a study in calcified pain. This book is a heartbreaker. IT IS SO SAD. And it might be her best yet.

Review by Ash

“Something is rotten in Okinawa… The death stench creeps…”

The smell of death washes over the Japanese island, and even stranger, a fish (Gyo) with what appears to be six working legs crosses paths with our main characters Tadashi and Kaori. Thus, marking the sudden beginning of their journey to find the underlying truth of the stench and those strange legs. This funny at times, yet uncanny read will keep you interested at all points, the art will both captivate and repulse you while the writing keeps you reading. Gyo is widely considered one of Junji Ito’s best works, and I am more than inclined to agree. Every panel shows the amount of effort and artistry that goes into capturing the body horror of speculative fiction in still drawings.

This iconic two-part horror manga by Junji Ito has been on my section of the staff pick self for the entirety of my employment here, but just in time for Halloween felt like the perfect opportunity to review it officially. Even within my collection of his works, this title is my favorite, I reread it annually. Such a strange concept could only be taken on properly by an artist like Junji Ito, every one of his novels is a chilling read with amazing art in accompaniment. You may know the name Junji Ito from one of the many times his novels have been adapted into shows and films, most recently, the Uzumaki adaptation on HBOMax. If you are a fan of either manga or horror and feel like stepping out of your comfort zone, I recommend you delve into the world of Junji Ito. These novels will meld those two worlds for you like you never expected. Never a huge fan of horror myself, after finding Junji Ito’s work I have found a branch of the genre that I love reading, especially this time of year. On top of Gyo, I would recommend all of his work, especially his short story collections and his adaptation of No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. Though some of his work is heavier than others, the latter being an example, they are all worthy reads that changed the way I look at horror and the human condition.  Many of these works are available to order through us, and Gyo will always have a spot on my staff pick shelf.

Review by Julia Buckwalter

This wonderful collection of lesser-known stories is curated to showcase women as we age outside of traditionally known stereotypes.  Drawing from European folklore and fairytale with the help of Angharad Wynne, author Sharon Blackie (most famous for “Hagitude”, a new cult classic) examines these stories through her PhD in Psychology background and Jungian studies to mine for wise women gold.  A beautiful accompaniment to the well-known Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarrisa Pinkola Estes, this joins the ever growing collection of writing by women for women, offering new ways of experiencing the full-spectrum of womanhood.  I also really enjoyed sharing some of these stories with my male partner as we all dip into the mythology of Fall and “witchy” tales this time of year.  A beautifully grotesque giant gathers boulders to visit her giantess friends an island over, and due to her gathering burdens creates geological formations well-known in Wales.  Another woman flees the boredom of her old marriage, acquiring a fox skin and learning that you cannot return to the place you’ve outgrown.  I particularly loved the eccentric old woman who protects a devastated young girl crying pearls in the forest, thrown out of her family home by an obstinate father, until the father and mother have proven their love and regret for their actions to her protector.  As an aside, it’s really lovely to examine the roots and history of labelling older women as hags or witches out of a response to a fear of women’s power, reclaiming that language from patriarchal definitions. The exclusivity of female bodies from science and medicinal practices was evident in a recent read I enjoyed in my bookclub, a work of fiction based of true events called Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See.  Occuring in 15th-century China, the novel explained the extremes of secrecy and feigned ignorance female healers had to uphold in order to save women’s lives from the male doctors who diagnosed their patients through screens.  You may already be conscious of healing as the true origins of female hermits (witches) cast off from society and sought by women to assist in sickness and health. Truly, this book is a gift to young women that they might reimagine their elderhood as a time to gather the wisdom of the years gone by, to support and nurture themselves and others!  Read it and share with women and men to enrich our collective story memory. 

Review by Nat

Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room and The Flamethrowers, is one of my favorite writers so I was thrilled to pick up her latest novel when it was released last month. Creation Lake follows an American undercover agent called Sadie Smith (we never learn her real name) as she infiltrates a farming commune in rural France. Sadie’s shadowy contacts want her to find evidence that the anarchic eco-activists sabotaged a construction project, or if no such evidence exists, she is tasked with inciting more subversive activity. As she embeds herself in the commune, Sadie becomes entranced with the group’s mentor, an old man who has abandoned society to live in a cave and return to a primitive way of life. Sadie’s ruthless and cynical self-interest is challenged as she grows ever more entangled in her web of lies and deception.

Creation Lake is a slow burn espionage thriller blended seamlessly with a philosophical novel. Sadie makes for an extremely engaging narrator as the reader is granted access to the conflict behind her seductive facade. Both thought provoking and highly entertaining, this novel brings wry humor, suspense, and musings about human nature in almost equal measure. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in radical left-wing politics or to those looking for a clever twist on a spy novel.

Review by Amber

Simply put this book is about consistently but effortlessly having the mindset of not giving any fucks. Mansons take on living your life using the backwards law can be difficult to process if your filled with ambition and eagerness to climb the ladder however, I find his guidance key in connection with the laws of attraction. “The desire for more experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience. This is a total mind-fuck. It’s what the philosopher Alan Watts used to refer to as “the backwards law” – the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place.” In a nutshell, don’t try. I would recommend this book to anyone who is witnessing themselves in a well-worn groove and would like to pursue a different approach to life.

Reviewed by Collee

A Heart In Winter, Kevin Barry’s propulsive new Western novel, is just so fun. There’s nothing revolutionary here, just the old “lovers on the run” theme. Barry’s writing, however, is always a breath of fresh air. He’s an Irish writer and a bit of a showman. His language is colorful and raucous and the action is high. It’s unapologetically derivative of shows like Deadwood, so if you loved that world, this book will feel like slipping on an old favorite pair of spurs.

Reviewed by Ash

The best way I can start to sum up this book is it is a series of short stories spanning across parallel universes following our main character Raffi. This book is a beautiful and complex exploration of the worlds of gender, love, and grief. Each story is different and touching in its unique way, overlapping in unexpected, moving arcs and invisible strings. Full of touches of sci-fi, mystery, and romance, this book has an entrancing prose, which kept me reading non-stop. The ending tied everything together in a beautiful personal bow that changed the way I looked at the whole book and even at the many-worlds theory.

The author, Emet North, has a very intriguing and surprising way of bringing their personal experience and humor into the book. I found myself laughing at parts I never would’ve in other books, it was more of the laugh you give to real-life situations. I cannot give enough credit to how real most of this book felt. The dialogue, the situations, the pain, and the world-building, that all brought me in and tied me onto the words of this book, and it has not let me go. This is one book I haven’t stopped thinking about since I finished it. A truly beautiful and moving experience that I would recommend to anyone looking for a queer many-worlds exploration that will leave you emotional and pondering.

Reviewed by Julia Buckwalter

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett is a novel that was published last year, which I finally got around to reading after it fell off the top bestseller lists and my bookclub chose it for our August read.  What is it about Ann Patchett? A bookseller herself who owns Parnassus Books in Nashville, she writes about people who feel real and down to earth; I think she has a knack for capturing the inner thoughts of narrators that many authors lack. Thinking about the book after reading it feels like remembering a dream I had once about people I knew a long time ago – or was it a story a friend told me?  Set during the pandemic, the story is led by a middle-aged protagonist named Lara who’s pod is composed of her 3 college-aged daughters and husband, living and working on their cherry tree farm in Michigan.  It’s cozy.  It’s comforting.  But there’s a raw spot with one daughter, Emily, which seems to be related to an untold story of a famous actor her mother knew.  Lara begins to tell that story now to placate her daughters, remembering a time in which she was a young actress starring in a production of Our Town (a real play, in our real life) while falling in love with the charismatic Peter Duke. While Lara’s days are now spent picking cherries and observing her family, we follow the former aspiring ingenue’s journey while she narrates to her daughters and also catch glimpses of her inner, private dialogue.  Midway through this book I grew comfortable, only to find Patchett picking up speed and swiftly energizing the story with new paths that I had not predicted, taking her to and from the bright lights of Hollywood to become now mother and wife.  As with some of her previous works, this novel soars to a cathartic crescendo in the end that captures the raw fragility of living from a stunning angle that only a skilled storyteller can formulate.  A truly satisfying read!

Reviewed by Nat Smith

Nobel Prize-winning author Alice Munro passed away last May at the age of 92. Her passing inspired me to revisit her work and I am very glad that I did. Munro’s 2001 book “Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage” is a profoundly moving and utterly enthralling collection of nine short stories. Largely set in rural Canada, the stories are all grounded tales about complicated relationships, both familial and romantic. I relished each story because of Munro’s dynamic characters. They are so believable and well-realized, deeply flawed yet extremely sympathetic.
Munro was an expert storyteller who often drew comparisons to one of my favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor. Both women focused on small communities and were adept at exploring moral quandaries, able to pack a novel’s worth of complexity into a fraction of the page count. However, I think Munro was less cynical than O’Connor. Rather than ending a story with a gut punch, Munro often closes on an uplifting note. She doesn’t provide simple answers to the thought-provoking questions she poses, which typically left the stories rattling around in my head long after I finished them. When Munro won the Nobel Prize, she was hailed as a “master of the contemporary short story.” This collection shows a master in peak form, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys realistic fiction.

Reviewed by Sophie

Tenemos libros en español para niños ¡Éstos son algunos de nuestros favoritos ahora!

Reviewed by Nat Smith

I was quite excited when historian Hampton Sides published a new book since I thoroughly enjoyed “Blood and Thunder,” his look at Kit Carson and the conquest of the American West. In his latest effort, “The Wide Wide Sea,” Sides turns his attention to the Age of Exploration and the third voyage of Captain James Cook, the legendary British naval officer and cartographer. It is a morally complicated tale that Sides handles admirably, perfectly balancing the thrilling adventure story with the necessary historical context.

For his fateful final expedition, Cook left England in 1776 in search of the Northwest Passage. The theorized shortcut from the Atlantic to the Pacific over North America was choked with sea ice, but on the way Cook became the first European explorer to visit the Hawaiian Islands. The sailors overstayed their welcome in the island paradise and cultural misunderstandings soon boiled over. Cook’s fury over a stolen boat spurred a botched kidnapping of the Hawaiian king, resulting in the captain’s violent death. On his previous voyages, Cook had been more understanding of Indigenous cultures and treated his crew more compassionately. There is no simple explanation for Cook’s change in demeanor on his third voyage, but Sides examines a variety of theories. He weaves together a range of sources, from sailors’ journals to Hawaiian oral tradition, to form an exquisitely detailed tapestry. I strongly recommend this book to people interested in exploration history, but I think anyone who enjoys narrative nonfiction should give it a try.

Reviewed by Amber Rose

Strong or soft, wild or serene-
Wherever breath flows there is song.
Hear its whisper touching behind the face.
Singing in the throat,
Dancing spirals in the sanctuary of your heart.

In this practice of listening,
A moment may come when you just want to lie down.
This is a doorway- surrender.
Fall into the wide-open embrace of life.
You are the instrument breath is playing.

All the meditations you have ever loved
Are vibrating in this luxurious hum,
Continuing even in sleep and dreams.
This is your school. Just you and infinity.
The texture of the Self is untamed freedom.
Yukti Verse 32

Lorin Roche’s The Radiance Sutras is a contemporary interpretation of the timeless, universal meditations of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. Prepare yourself for a meander towards a journey of love, devotion, surrender and ineffable feelings. The depths of yoga are intricately woven by the love language of Shiva as the divine masculine and Shakti as the divine feminine. Their wonderous and cosmic communion shares informal invitation of secret pathways to guide you along the path towards dual balance of passion and detachment.
Discover 112 techniques for the lifelong practice of enlightenment through everyday life experiences. This is a translation of the melodic Sanskrit language for you to enjoy at your own pace and in your own time. After all, we have our whole lives to learn.

Reviewed by Collee

Women of the world- Rejoice! Hailed as the first great perimenopause novel, Miranda July’s All Fours has arrived to discuss changes that half the population of the world will most likely experience and heretofore, have most likely not discussed. July blows the doors open on “woman in mid-life” in every way imaginable. She explores sexuality, desire, body image, reinvention, motherhood, marriage, and living a life without shame for what one truly wants even though it will change everything. I think what makes this book such a revelation is that so rarely do we see women in mid-life (who may be mothers and partners) putting their morphing sense of self first. She’ll make you believe your life can be whatever you want it to be. She’s just reminding you, after all.

Reviewed by Ash Howe

This is a climate crisis journalist, Ruiz Grossman’s, debut novel following a cast of several diverse characters in and around Berkley, California. Being a multi-perspective novel, it jumps through your cast of characters as they face climate disaster, alongside some of life’s other biggest changes. This perspective-switching allows you to look into the personal opinions, actions, and afflictions of each character. Noting how they’re all similar and different, as well as getting insights other characters are unaware of. Spanning just over a year in under 200 pages, it shows how some folks rise from the ashes, how others are suffocated in them, and how their backgrounds may or may not predetermine this outcome.
This book kept me interested the whole time, it made me laugh at a couple of points and tear up at a few others. Though the pacing can vary, the characters can seem a bit flat and the plot can lean toward predictability. This book was overall a good read, all of those factors seem to be due to the longer timeline being conveyed through a shorter, perspective-leaping format. This book is a gentle and hopeful look into the climate crisis, the determination that comes with youth, and getting through change and growth. If you’re looking for light coverage of modern perspectives on the climate crisis, this is a good novel for that. It shows how each character forges their path after the fire while remaining somewhat removed from the reality that is just down the road for all of us.

Reviewed by Julia Buckwalter

I’m delighted to share a new dazzling work of poetry with you, Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan. Imagine an alternative universe wherein Emily Dickinson and Mary Oliver share a daughter, whose godfather was Jim Harrison. He tells her stories about mountains while she grows up playing next-door with Rupi Kaur, eventually writing her thesis on Women Who Run With the Wolves. And here you have a new modern classic! 135 poems are divided into six parts, plus an interlude:
I: Realize You’re Homesick
II: Come Apart
III: Commit to the Road
Interlude: Westward, A Woman Walks
IV: Reacquaint Yourself With Desire
V: Give Grief Her Own Lullabye
VI: Remind Yourself, Joy Is Not a Trick
At approximately half a page in length each, these poems are bite-sized chunks of heart, heat, wonder and story that will both unseat and settle the soul, setting it aloft like a cloud that will fill up with meaningful rain during its journey. Sullivan speaks of love and longing with the same care and attention as she does tomatoes and mountains, her capable eyes drawing meaning and richness from everyday living. Her poems are expressed with the urgency of amazement, yet contain the Taoist balance of knowing while not knowing – everything I feel the above-mentioned poets and possible influences succeed in. This book is a long, delicious drink of living words… I especially enjoyed the poems that evolved the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden. I read hungrily but found myself pausing to savor, sometimes saying out loud, “Wow.” I highly recommend it!
Excerpt from Giving Notice: “Do what you should have done years ago. Let your body out to pasture. Fill your calendar with nothing but sky. Surrender to the woods. To cicadas and sap beetles. To the moths, the color of memory and dream. Wear dusk like an ancient cloak. Hurry–“

Reviewed by Matthew

Reviewed by Collee

Reviewed by Julia

There are some memoirs which turn you into a sleuth, googling the author for a timeline of their past lives and full bibliography. I first was introduced to author Robyn Davidson through the book ‘Tracks,’ in which she walked/rode camels across Western Australia in 1977 at age 27 with her dog, Diggity. A true travel writer, she wrote about both the landscape and its people with an unsparing tongue, conscious of ecological, social, and political injustices. She would often turn that critical eye on herself as well, a practice she utilizes again in her latest work, and possibly her last (she says), the memoir ‘Unfinished Woman’ which was published late last year. Davidson touches on her childhood both in the outback and the suburbs, her famous camel journey, her young and famous and restless years in London, and even a long-standing home deep in the jungles of India. But more importantly, I discovered, she analyzes and makes a kind of peace with the suicide of her mother when she was just 12, a topic she has left almost entirely untouched in prior writing, and gifted readers with now via her memories and feelings in response. The entire book weaves in and out of this momentous experience, revisiting the history of her parent’s marriage and where the longings and needs of her mother were unmet, as the author ages and enters her own relationships with men. I found the book quite unforgettable and absolutely enriching to read! For readers who enjoy the mind of a wanderer, and are curious about the layers that such a life might be built upon.

Review by Josh

“Ever After” by F.T. Lukens is a YA story that asks the question of what happens after the quest is over? The prophecy has been fulfilled and the heroes have deposed the evil king, and now Arek, with his comrades, must now figure out how to run a kingdom and bring balance to a long frightened land. Unknowingly, but placing on the crown, he has enacted a spell that would have him find true love or lose his life as consequence. With only a set time to find true love, will Arek succeed in reviving a damaged kingdom and finding the person to share the crown with, or will love be found in the person who’s been by his side the whole time?

Fans of fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, and sappy romances will feel the thrill of this adventure and fall head over heels in this YA story.

Reviewed by Matthew

Everyone I know should read this, but who will? In 1990s London, a poor American mother named Sibylla rides the Tube with her 2-year-old son Ludo. Ludo reads Homer in Greek. He’s also learning Arabic, then more languages, then wild foraging, Gaussian math, aerodynamics, and “Straight, No Chaser”…He’s a fatherless prodigy. For years, mother & son obsess over Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film “Seven Samurai.” By his 12th birthday, the film has inspired Ludo to find & test a father worthy of him.

The thing about this novel is, someone picks it up expecting Tom Cruise, and instead it’s sometimes like an instruction manual for basic Japanese. But it’s not about the elitism of being smart. In fact, the experience of reading it feels pretty anti-elitist. This is a story about ambition. Its meaning, its limits. It doesn’t say, “Only an intellectual gets this.” It asks, “Well, why couldn’t you, yes, YOU, Reader, learn a little Japanese, like little Ludo?” Yes, it is sometimes a little like an instruction manual: one for cultivating ambition in a culture that’s comfortable with a low bar. It’s also a story about stories, and chance, truth, heroes, money, and death. And, it’s constantly funny. Okay, so it’s not my favorite novel. But it’s been a while since I felt this seen by a novel. “The Last Samurai” can see you, too. A good samurai will parry the blow.

Reviewed by Megan

When I first picked this book up from the “Staff Picks” shelf of a Portland bookstore (you’ll never catch me turning down the opportunity to roam the shelves of an indie bookseller no matter how much time I spend in one on the clock) I wasn’t quite sure what genre to file it into in my brain. The synopsis starts with the death of the author’s mother, then the introduction of inexplicable flashing lights in the woods behind his grieving father’s home – suddenly I’m coercing mystery, religiosity, paranormalcy, even perhaps extraterrestrial contact into my expectations of what I might find in this book alongside grief, loss, and familial connection.

Entrancing from the start, Vollmer’s memoir brings all these ideas together in a compassionate exploration of things that we believe – or might believe, or stop believing – when faced with loss, tough questions, and unexplainable mysteries. The prose is lyrical yet unpretentious, allowing empathy and curiosity to guide father and son’s process of grieving, rebuilding, and truth finding.

“All of Us Together in the End” is a beautiful read and well-deserving of its spot on that Portland Staff Picks shelf, as well as, now, on my own here at Back of Beyond.

Reviewed by Heidi

Saving Time is an ambitious, wide-reaching book that explores the relationship between time, money, and power. Odell masterfully illustrates how the dominant view of time as linear and incremented is inextricable not only from capitalism but from a whole host of other systemic harms, including colonization, white supremacy, and climate change.

For instance, it can often feel like we are marching toward an inevitable and apocalyptic future, the dreaded outcome predetermined. Odell doesn’t shy away from her own experience of this feeling, but also pushes back against what she describes as “declinism,” a fatalistic and deterministic view of the future fueled by nostalgia for the past. She reminds the reader that the dominant narrative of climate change – and time itself – as a linear, set-in-stone progression of events is instead just one possibility among many.

This insightful, mind-bending book is woven together by a myriad of sources and topics that loop back on themselves in startling ways, defying my efforts to summarize the whole. The best way I can describe Saving Time is this: it is both a paradigm-shifting call to action and a healing balm in an age of climate unraveling and sociopolitical upheaval. It acknowledges the deep grief and exhaustion many of us feel, without wallowing in despair. Above all, it is a hope-filled dive into our experience of time, reminding us that the way things are is not the way they always were, nor what they always have to be.

Reviewed by Sophie

Kent Frost’s classic is part folk history and part ode to wilderness. Frost writes about growing up in Bluff, Monticello and La Sal in the 1920 and 30s, his adventures in the La Sal Mountains, Grand Gulch, Montezuma Canyon, the Needles, Monument Valley, and on the San Juan and the Colorado Rivers. Frost is an excellent storyteller with salty humor and vivid descriptions of the canyonlands he loved so much. For those interested in local history, this book is a must.

Please note: this book is now out of print, but we have a copy or two in store – call 435-259-5154 or email us for more information.

Reviewed by Alyssa

I picked this up without knowing anything about the story, just that it was highly recommended by a friend. I dove in with that assurance alone, and I am so happy I had no idea what I was in for! It made the slow burn all the more creepy in this genre-bending pseudo-horror. Faint brushes with horror are normally as much as I can stand at a time so it was the perfect amount for me. I loved the idea of people living in their own oceans and no matter how well you know and love someone, you don’t and you can’t know them fully. There’s a whole ocean of a person in front of you and how could you possibly discover it all – some of it’s beautiful and a lot of it is hostile and dangerous and highly individual. Someone can invite you in but you and they are just as likely to drown or disappear down there as you are to splash around safely and collect seashells.

Reviewed by Collee

The Guest is propulsive in an almost feverish way. The protagonist, 22 year old Alex, grifts her way across an exclusive beach town in search of a new situation after the patronage from an older man abruptly ends. The book encapsulates one week in her world of angling, manipulation and self-delusion.

Alex is a bit of a phantom. The interest lies not in knowing her, but in what this constantly moving shark will do next. The Guest is rife with portent and taut with tension. A fascinating trainwreck to watch unfold. The best kind of icky.

Reviewed by Megan

In her poetry collection, Bread and Circus, Airea D. Matthews powerfully couples her background in economic study with intimate auto-biography to directly counter the theories put forth in classical economic and political thought. Pushing boundaries of poetic form, Matthews’ work poses a challenge to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand,” proposing the failure of self-interest in reaching an economically optimized society when that society’s people themselves are commodified. Deeply personal poems and prose are offered alongside redacted excerpts from both Smith and French Marxist Guy Debord, leaving the reader with both a greater wisdom of the truths of modern society and with a deep connection to the author’s own story. Bread and Circus is creative, moving, and massively relevant – highly recommend!

Reviewed by Matthew

If the first page doesn’t seize you, there’s no better pitch for the novel. Like many great stories, you’re told everything at the start. Who, how, where, why, when, all on that first page. Then, the novel will spend the majority of its remaining pages casting a spell so enchanting that you forget the inevitable, forget you already know how this all ends. Great storytellers like Toni Morrison know plot can all be spoiled before the curtain even goes up, because the magic is in the telling. And, this is a telling with power to forever change the way you hear. Listen.

Jazz by Toni Morrison

This new eco-thriller from Eleanor Catton begins when a landslide blocks off a pass on New Zealand’s South Island, leaving a small town and a large farm mostly abandoned. The guerrilla gardening group known as Birnam Wood quickly seizes the opportunity for some semi-criminal crop planting. By the time the collective encounters an enigmatic American billionaire who claims to have purchased the farm to build his doomsday bunker, I was totally entangled in the plot’s intrigue. Catton completes an impressive balancing act over the course of the book, delving into rich thematic territory while also fleshing out a memorable cast of characters and steadily ramping up an engrossing mystery. The ideological extremes of anarchic environmentalism and techno-capitalism meet in a delicious muddle while the shadow of climate apocalypse looms over the proceedings. Birnam Wood was a novel that I could not put down and one I will not forget anytime soon.

reviewed by Shari

This is a beautifully crafted novel that takes readers on a journey through time and self-discovery. The story follows the Rabinovitch family: their flight from Russia following the revolution, their journey to Latvia, Palestine, and Paris. Interestingly, Berest has chosen the genre of fiction to interrogate her own family history, exploring themes of identity, belonging, and the significance of familial bonds. Berest adeptly examines how the past shapes the present and the ways in which our ancestors’ experiences can influence our own lives. Anyone interested in either the City of Lights, history or calling up the past for a chance at reclaiming the present will love this novel as much as I did.

Reviewed by Sophie

Parker-Chan’s debut is a stunning retelling of Chinese history focusing on themes of gender identity, free will, and desire. Set in 14th-century China, this historical fantasy tells of a girl who refuses to be nothing. Taking on the fate and identity of her brother, Zhu Chongba, she seeks greatness at any cost. Her journey from peasant to monk to war commander fuses her with characters as complex and strong-willed as she is, and provides readers with a compelling, heart-wrenching story.

Reviewed by Alyssa

Richard Powers is becoming an all-time favorite of mine. After his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Overstory, I was hooked, and Bewilderment did not disappoint. His ability to connect the dramas of living a life to the largesse of the universe leaves you feeling both small and infinitely important to the cause of all. The thread between appreciation for life itself and individual action is gossamer-thin, but carries the weight of worlds within worlds, and Powers captivates as he shines light onto what’s possible in his novel.

Reviewed by Heidi

David Graeber – anthropologist, activist, and arguably one of the greatest anarchist intellectuals of our time – passed away unexpectedly in 2020. He leaves us with one last gift of a book: The Dawn of Everything. Written along with archaeologist David Wengrow, this books is a well-researched masterpiece that flips the conventional story of human history on its head. The popular theory goes that human cultures generally evolve in a linear fashion from generalist hunter-gatherers, to settled bands that practice agriculture; in time, they produce a surplus of food, which allows groups to specialize and acquire wealth and status; and later on down the line, cities spring up, followed by industry, empire, and the creation of the modern state. First advanced by Hobbes and Rousseau, championed today by authors such as Yuval Noah Harari, this theory is almost universally accepted.

Almost.

Graeber and Wengrow counter this notion with a stunningly well-researched and wildly different perspective on the last 30,000 years of human history. they present a compelling body of evidence that refutes the idea that cultures evolve along a fixed and linear trajectory; and what’s more, they do so in a way that celebrates and affirms the autonomy, intelligence, and creativity of our species. Humans are not passive objects tossed around by environmental and material forces, they argue. We have – and have always had – the power to choose how to live our lives. And in many cases, our ancestors actively chose not to adopt technologies and lifestyles that would have led them along the linear path to hierarchy and statehood.

The Dawn of Everything is a beacon of light in dark and uncertain times, and an uplifting reminder that the trajectory of humanity is not set in stone.

Reviewed by Shari

On the cover of Patti Smith’s A Book of Days, is a picture of Patti in a black brimmed hat, holding her Polaroid camera in her left hand, her right hand poised at her lips in a gesture of contemplative curiosity. On the back cover, Cairo, her loyal cat, sits atop a copy of Federico Garcia Lorca, the picture dated June 5, 2018.

Patti Smith’s latest work was, interestingly, born out of her Instagram account, where in 2018 she started posting a picture a day. It holds a picture and a caption for every day of the year, revealing Smith’s solid practice of finding beauty within the mundane and imbuing both the objects and the people in her world with a special kind of magic, relegating all aspects of her life worthy of inspiration – revelation.  “Entries and images,” Patti says, “are keys to unlocking one’s own thoughts. Each is surrounded with the reverberation of other possibilities. Birthdays acknowledged are prompts for others, including your own. A Paris café is all cafes, just as a gravesite may echo others mourned and remembered.”

Naturally, I was curious about what Patti posted on my own birthday, July 20th: A picture of Rutger Hauer from Blade Runner with this caption – “Within the course of Blade Runner, Rutger Hauer infused his own humanity into Roy Batty’s android heart. Remembering the actor, imbued with Batty’s powers, sailing off the shoulder of Orion, seeing things we humans would not believe.”

Rainer Maria Rilke says that “if your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.”

Patti, to my mind, and especially with this book out in the world, is poet enough.

Reviewed by David

Kuang’s book centers around the intersecting forces of colonialism, academia, and the magical properties of silver in 1830s England. the British Empire is on the rise because it hoards silver bars to harness their ability to bring forth the true nature of a concept as described by two words engraved in the bar itself in different languages.

Engraving a match-pair in a silver bar unlocks the inherent and inarticulable properties of the concept the two words are meant to describe – that which is invariably lost in translation. This is the magic of the silver, but it only happens when the words are properly matched, and this is work that only skilled interpreters can do. Babel’s cohort of protagonists, talented students that Oxford University conscripted from other countries around the world who study at the Royal Institute of Translation, are the keys to the silver bars working and thus the competitive advantage of the Empire.

The students are surrounded by the trappings of the elite, and as some of the few translators of the more “exotic” languages, they are prized and protected… and at the same time never fully accepted by the place that is now their home. Cracks in the façade begin to reveal themselves as they figure out that what undergirds the high ideals of Oxford University is not in fact the pursuit of knowledge or enlightenment.

It’s the colonial ambition of England.

This story propels the reader forward through time, across continents and ethical dilemmas, and into violence and tragedy. The way Kuang deploys language as a weapon is both allegorical and literal, carrying the characters through their own evolution and articulating the perspective of the colonized across cultures. But the characters themselves are what you care about in the end, as it should be with any good story.

Reviewed by Matthew

Finally, a new planet. But the ship that got us there took almost 200 years: so by now, the humans aboard are several generations removed from the ones who started the voyage. And in all that time, this ship has gained secrets & a story of its own.

This is not at all the novel it first seems like. Instead of making the reader starry-eyed with the wonders of space exploration, this is a cosmic-level story about home, and whether or not we as individuals, as communities, or as a species, should even try finding a home elsewhere.

Reviewed by Claret

This story follows one girl as she navigates the complicated world of adolescence, insecurity, and attraction. At the beginning of the book our main character, Giovanna, is young and naïve, her world consisting of her parents and their apartment in northern Naples. When Giovanna overhears her father bitterly comparing her to his estranged sister, her self-esteem plummets and she is sent spiraling, desperate to meet the mysterious aunt her parents so clearly despise. When Giovanna finally does meet her aunt, her world is flipped on its head as she begins to see the hypocrisy of adults, the lies they tell, and the consequences those lies have.

I found this story to be wonderfully written and extremely emotionally intuitive. At the same time I found Giovanna to be a frustrating, moody, and self-centered narrator, providing a realistic representation of the teenage mind. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a story about family conflict, coming of age, and girlhood as a whole.

Reviewed by Collee

This 1995 novel, first published in French, is a rather austere account of a woman’s life. From her girlhood locked in a prison cell with 39 women (with no knowledge of the outside world), to her eventual nomadic existence in a barren land above the subterranean holding cell where the story begins, answers do not abound here. I found myself not caring about explanations, though. This tale is about the journey- how we negotiate relationships in a community and how we live honestly. I loved the quietness of tone here and the mysteries that one is left to ponder on one’s own. Another speculative, dystopian novel that I’m glad didn’t get lost to the ages.

Reviewed by Nat

In anticipation of the film adaptation on Netflix, I decided to reread White Noise by Don DeLillo. The National Book Award-winning postmodern novel was just as engrossing the second time. It tells the story of college professor Jack Gladney as his suburban family life is upended by an environmental disaster known as the “airborne toxic event.” DeLillo’s witty satire targets consumerism, academia, and the fear of death in a manner that is both hilarious and unsettling. The book’s atypical structure and bizarre dialogue make it somewhat divisive, but I would still highly recommend it to any fans of Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, and George Saunders, or anyone who enjoys darkly humorous examinations of American culture.

Reviewed by Alyssa

Dressler brings you into a world where ghost hunting is a relatively common and well-respected occupation. Towns and private citizens alike spend a great deal of money to ‘clean’ the spaces they inhabit of all unwanted spirits. It’s in this world that Emma Rose Finnis has been living as a ghost for over one hundred years, evading the pursuits of Cleaners, and haunting/living in a life that’s all her own and strangely borrowed. This is Emma Rose’s story of survival in a world seemingly determined to stamp her out, and the methods we teach ourselves to aid in that survival. Do you make yourself small or big, loud or quiet, adamant or passive, bold or invisible, in order to keep your place and hold your right to existence? And what if you choose wrong?

This is an exciting opening to a trilogy I can’t wait to make my way through.

Reviewed by Sophie

The main character of this book is a Mars rover named Resilience (nickname Res).

On Earth, as he is built and downloads code to learn about his Mars mission, Res learns about human emotions and what it means to be alive from the “hazmats” (humans!) that work with him. While on Mars these emotions and relationships help Res on his mission.

Jasmine Warga gives voice to the curious rovers, chatty drones and efficient satellites that help humans explore space. It is a great book for those that find space exploration and artificial intelligence fascinating. Every page made me smile.

Reviewed by Heidi

How many times in your life have you felt burnt out? Fatigued? Frazzled? And yet, when you take any sort of break, are you left feeling ashamed and guilty for wasting time that you could have used to be productive?

Rest, Hersey explains, is about much more than literal sleep. It is about “beginning the messy process of deconstructing your own beliefs and behaviors that are aligned with white supremacy and capitalism… our lack of boundaries for ourselves and each other, the choices we make, and how we engage with ourselves and our community” all act in the service of the systems that drive us to exhaustion. To rest, you must examine how you harm yourself and others and make an effort to stop. Rest can look like napping on the couch, yes, but it can also look like not immediately responding to texts or emails. It can look like taking regular breaks from social media. It can look like laughing with your friends, staring out a window and daydreaming, or blasting music and dancing alone in your room. Rest comes in many forms.

Rest as a form of resistance is not something new and trendy, Hersey points out; rather, it is a continuation of liberation work that Black people have been practicing for generations in the face of anti-Black oppression and trauma. imaginative writings from authors like Octavia Butler, bell hooks, and Audre Lorde, Black people have continually found ways to resist the demand that they exhaust themselves in the service of capitalism and white supremacy. Capitalism and white supremacy are grinding us all into dust, regardless of our race or any other factor. These systems will not make space for you to rest because it is antithetical to how they function. Resisting these systems ultimately benefits everyone.

You are enough, this book says. Don’t believe the lie that your worth depends on what you produce; you do not have to prove yourself through constant doing. Let go of your guilt and your shame. You are worthy right now, right here. And you deserve to rest.